The INTO Difference

We have learned a number of things from INTO. First of all, their marketing ability is fantastic and we’ve looked very closely at what they do and how they go about it, particular techniques, which markets, ideas they have and we’ve actually gone and ‘stolen’ them, to be honest, for our own benefit and it’s been fascinating for us and a great learning experience! That’s actually the beauty of partnership, learning from each other.

The benefits are significant. The academic staff have really started to think about internationalization.

INTO is helping us break the crucial link between the 4-year degree in Scotland and the 3-year degree in England, so the year at INTO forms the first of those 4 years. It’s an integrated programme and that helps tremendously in reducing the cost which can be a significant burden to some of our international intake.

The INTO centre on campus has given a real international student feel: a very modern, very bright centre - it has helped us sell the benefits of the international student experience on the University of East Anglia campus.

The ‘elan’ and ‘dynamism’ associated with the characters in the senior management team at INTO has been really pleasurable. As critical friends, they have given us a real prod in some of our strategic directions which is really welcomed. It’s been a delightful consequence that I wasn’t expecting at all.

The INTO partnership has been incredibly successful for our University. It’s exceeded all the predictions we had. We knew it would do well but we really have been amazed by its success. The most obvious benefit that the INTO network has is the incredible marketing and representational expertise that INTO brings; we couldn’t do it on our own, we absolutely couldn’t.

The partnership has underpinned a range of jobs within the academic faculties and it’s also created large numbers of jobs within the INTO centre itself. When we first handed over the language centre to INTO, there were 27 staff and there’s now roughly a 100 INTO staff in the centre.

The partnership has expertise in understanding markets and the market dynamic.

The partnership has had a significant impact in our business practices and the way we look at things. A good case in point, at OSU it took us a couple of weeks to turn applications around and you’re competing in a market place where time is of essence so one of the things the partnership brought was a sense of urgency.